Roadtrippin'

Last weekend was spent in Ottawa and Montreal with Dave, Tiff, Hanmin and Iulia. We passed on the chinese bus tour and opted for renting a car and living in a hotel and university residence. This offered maximum flexibility but required more work in terms of finding places to stay and where to rent a car.

We left Toronto early Friday morning and stopped off first in Kingston. Tiff offered to be our tour guide since she had attended Queen's University. She was great! We walked around downtown Kingston and visited little shops and boutiques.

Our next stop was Ottawa. We arrived in the evening and met up with Hanmin and Iulia's high school friend, Mike. He took us out to dinner at a very nice restuarant - Metropolitan (is that right?). He claimed there were really nice washrooms but what he actually meant was that the doors were wooden. Still, it was a nice restaurant :) The next morning, Dave, Tiff and I woke up early and drove around Ottawa - we took the car to the Governor General's house. The prime minister's house is across the street but it wasn't very impressive so we took pictures of the Governor General's house instead - her house had guards out at the front gates. Afterwards, we drove through downtown Ottawa trying to find the parking lot with free parking on the weekends (World Exchange Plaza on Metcalfe and Albert - for future reference). I thought they had gotten rid of it or maybe it was just a figment of my imagination but we found it after circling through the streets of downtown Ottawa with Dave, who was driving, asking, "Are you sure there's free parking?" and me replying, "Just turn here FOO!". I think that after this experience, Dave learned to trust me with directions and not to question my navigating instructions. We took pictures of the parliament buildings and then of the canal. We had lunch in the marketplace and then walked to the National Art Gallery where we met up with Hanmin and Iulia.

Arriving in Montreal, our first stop was to Concordia University where we were staying. Somehow, we had forgotten to write the address of the University - we only knew that it was on Sherbrooke. I had done a mapquest search of the University but somehow it had led me to the wrong area. Therefore, we were quite lost and stopped at a plaza to ask for directions. Dave had previously expressed concern that none of us knew any French and that we'd be in trouble if we needed directions. We had reassured him that it'd be okay - people in Montreal speak English too. When we stopped at this plaza to ask an old man for directions however, Dave started speaking quite fluently in French. What the... Note to self: don't believe anything Dave says. We eventually found our way after purchasing a map of Montreal.

Montreal was lots of fun. We visited Old Montreal and watched fireworks our first night. We ate poutine at a restaurant recommended by Hanmin and Iulia (excellent food!!) and smoked meat at Schwartz (yuuuummmy). We visited McGill and went for a 2-ish hour hike up Mont Royal. We also visited St. Joseph's Oratory. We walked through downtown Montreal along St.Catherine and found strip clubs with graphic displays that kept us fascinated at the corner for several minutes before we realized we were staring. Our last night included a game of Carcassonne with some alcohol on the side. We've got some really good pictures but there are still to be uploaded. Check on my flickr account in the future. :P

Arriving back in Toronto, we decided to go see a movie - Charlie and the Chocolate factory - really funny :D - and then we ate steaks at Master Steak's (is that right?) on Dixie.

Over all, an excellent and much needed trip.